Professor

You can't sack the manager every time you go 1-0 down and, who knows, we might yet win this game, although listening to Dave and Adam on Radio Solent it's difficult to be optimistic. Our squad looks so much better on paper than the performances the team are putting in. Results can't be down to one or another player in team selection because we effectively have two players for all 11 positions who should be capable of starting. It's understandable that some people are beginning to ask whether the problem is with the manager or with the coaching but I think we can be certain that Pellegrino is more disappointed than anyone else by the performance and it can only be improved now by the players on the pitch. Perhaps we'll see an improvement after half-time.

He was exciting when he was 16 and too good for Redknapp to leave him out of the team, but despite those England caps he’s not always had a nailed-on place in the Arsenal team and is now a second-string player. If he’s not good enough for them, why should he be good enough for us. Nostalgia is never a reason to re-sign a former player; he must be better than anyone else available at the price and wages the club is prepared to pay.

Has winning become all that matters to the extent that cheating is acceptable as long as the players can fool the referee? Pundits now praise players for ‘winning’ a penalty which seems odd unless they have forced an opponent to commit a foul. If the match result is everything why bother to have any rules at all? Some managers already behave as if the rules only apply to the other team. There was an interesting example in the game at Stoke. Van Dijk was beaten to the ball so he grabbed the Stoke player’s sleeve to slow him down.. That was clearly cheating and Stoke deserved the penalty kick. But then the Stoke player cheated by throwing himself to the ground which in some circumstances would have justified a sending off. Some would say that a shot from 12 yds (11m) isn’t always enough punishment, for example, where a foul prevents a clear goal-scoring opportunity. However, Stoke were awarded the lottery of a penalty kick which was unsuccessful. But what about the Stoke player? The whistle hadn’t gone when he dived so should he also have been punished? The Stoke player did what so many players do and ‘went to ground’ as soon as he felt any contact in the area, his hope being that the referee would give a penalty. In this case a foul was committed but so often there is no foul when players dive. If there was an easy solution, it would have been tried but the amount of cheating and defending of the indefensible has given us a game that sometimes looks unhealthy.

Well, there we are. It’s all a conspiracy orchestrated by Les Reed and his mole on the coaching staff, Eric Black. These are the same people who harboured Lord Lucan for years. I just hope that whoever posted this rubbish doesn’t actually believe it!

Oh dear, If only we had a £50m plus CB in the side we wouldn't have needed Forster to make that save! Strange game, football, with our key player having had a hand in Stoke's first goal as well as conceding the penalty. Onus must be on VVD to score in the second half.

If team selection was by a democratic process it would be Hoedt in for Yoshi, Gabbi for Long and Long for Redmond. I usually back the manager but this is beginning to look like stubbornness.

Yes, I think you're right because it meant so much too him, but how it worked out must still have been a major disappointment and IMO he would have been better off now, had he stayed here. The suggestion of employing Rickie as a finishing-cum-penalty-taking coach has some merit although it might not be a permanent need. It is a fact that he did as much as anyone to get us from L1 to the Prem. It was remarkable that we had several players in the L1 team who would prove to be of Premier League and even international standard, so it wasn't a one-man show by Rickie but his goals made all the difference and for a time you just knew he would score in virtually every game. It would be nice to see him on the support staff here if a role could be found as many people must still see him as a hero.

If it meant he's a striker FROM Liverpool it wouldn't say 'former' as he's still a striker from Liverpool. The criticism of Parish seems fair because he's taken the lazy route of linking Rickie to the club he briefly played for that is not even his last Premier League club, but it is one of the media's favourites. There's no doubt that Rickie is properly described as "the former Southampton Striker" but our name sells fewer newspapers. It's sad to hear that Rickie is still trying to stay fit when he's been out of the game for so long and had become a fringe player. His problem may be finding any other way of earning a living. Even towards the end of his Saints' career he wasn't really a true striker any more but was doing a job in a supporting role. The great shame is that he was ever tempted to go to Liverpool because had he stayed here it's very likely that Saints would have looked after him in the way they have with Radhi Jaidi and Kelvin Davis. Unfortunately, he broke the link and probably regrets it. A nice bloke who made a mistake.

Be interesting to see how their fans cheer VVD when he scores against Liverpool from a corner at Anfield on 18 Nov.

We definitely have a line-up favoured by a lot of fans on here. If Pellegrino doesn’t agree he will obviously have his reasons. If he goes with something else, maybe still like last Saturday’s which was praised for the second half, I wonder if we will ever know his reasoning. As the line up isn’t known at the pre-match press conference it can’t be questioned by the media and by the next week all has moved on. It would be interesting to have the manager’s post-match explanation of what his thinking had been, whether it worked or not. I’m another would like Long retained but out wide with Gabbi up front and that it must be time for Van Dijk to come back.

Haven't been through this thread to see if anyone else has commented on this, but there was an arguable case for a free kick to Saints just before the United goal. The highlights show that Hoedt was close marking Lukaku before the cross from Young at which Lukaku grabbed Hoedt with both hands and physically pushed him out of the way. Make of it what you like.

This is a unique idea on this forum, which seems to be packed with experts but the answer to the Opening Question could be: 'Leave it to the Manager and the coaching staff'. It's possible that the professional staff know their jobs and have a better idea of how to win matches in top level football than people watching from the sidelines few of who turn up to training sessions or squad meetings. Much as it would be nice to think that Pellegrino looks through this forum on a daily basis, it's also possible he has better things to do, in which case all the well-meant advice is just being wasted.

From the highlights it did look to be a good performance by Callum Slattery and an excellent goal from the edge of the area. He looks sure to be the next Academy graduate to become a first team regular but the term 'wonder kid' should be reserved for the 17 or 18-year olds who break through at an exceptionally young age. Matt Le Tiss was 18 when he had his first team debut but wasn't a regular straight away and scored no goals at all in his second season. He was 20/21 when he made his mark as PFA Young Player of the Year. Bale and Walcott both made their debuts when they were 16 but Saints weren't then in the Premier League. One other thing about the commentary on the Highlights. I do wish people wouldn't praise players for 'Winning' a penalty. All that says is that the commentator believes the player cheated. If a penalty is given, the Referee believes it to be a genuine foul so you can hardly praise a player for being fouled as it's not his doing, whereas any player who simulates to get a penalty should be sent off. Either way it isn't something to a player's credit.

Amazing, isn't it, that we fans, without having studied football coaching, lacking any coaching badges and with no practical experience can come up with an idea that no one in football has ever thought of. "Increíble" as Mauricio might say.

It's surprising that someone who thinks our club is so bad, pretends to support it. People should love the club they support not allow it to make them angry. If someone finds they like a manager more than the club and that manager moves on, it would be better for the fan to move with them. People who follow our club but just want to complain about it should ask themselves why they claim to be a fan at all. Constructive criticism is one thing but if someone prefers another club and those who work for it, that would suggest their allegiance has already gone.

Wasn't surprised to find a thread on RK. As a Saints's fan I've not forgiven him for trying to pretend he had moral standards but still went grubbing in the dirt for more money. Looking for more pay is one thing but because he wasn't honest with us he left a nasty taste in the mouth. All the same, it was amusing how Everton fans expected him to bring our best players with him, wishful thinking that fell flat unless Martina was a world-class defender and we hadn't noticed. Seeing his club in the bottom three is briefly amusing. The gap between us this early in the season is meaningless but it will be nice if it lasts.

Redknapp sacked after 13 games. Hardly seems fair. Birmingham fans shouldn't have had him inflicted on them for anything like as long.

Agree. Shield is fine but the ball and scarf crest looks so amateurish.

People are bound to be anxious after losing a game that should have been winnable and still faced with the goal drought. As fans, we must put our faith in the coaching staff being able to identify what is going wrong, or what is not going right. We have plenty of quality in the squad so inevitably, fans are going to wonder about selections, formations and tactics. The first 4 league games doesn't tell the whole story because the defeat against Wolves in the EFL has to be put into the mix giving us a record so far of P5, W1 D2, L2. Although that isn't great, it's far too early to panic and a couple of decent results would soon change the picture. The suggestion in the Opening Post makes good sense. Far too soon for fans to begin behaving like Corporal Jones.

The one man who matters is Pellegrino, but fortunately, he's not alone. We can be certain that the coaching staff will be studying this result, and not just from the memory of watching from the stands, awful as that was, but they'll have to relive it over and over again as they analyse videos of the match. We won't learn much from what he says in public, as the manager won't want to demoralise his players but I think we can be sure that a lot will be said in private. As fans, we might get some indication from next week's selection because it does look like there need to be changes. Perhaps the problem is that some of our players are simply not as good as we think they are. Are we being fooled by players being picked for international teams into over-rating some of them? Brighton did better against Watford a couple of weeks ago and they won at home today with a team that is significantly inferior to ours on paper. We could even be below them after next week. We have already thrown away the easy start we were given by the fixture list and I'm sure that will be concentrating the manager's mind very thoroughly.

I was a long way out with my personal line-up prediction. Pellegrino must have an advantage over me in assessing how particular players are doing...... It's a great boost for Jack Stephens to be in the side ahead of Yoshida, although it's possible that travel in the international break might have played a part in that decision. Also a confidence boost for JWP to be starting given the midfield competition. I still enjoy pointing out to some of my "glory supporter" pals who claim they support the likes of Chelsea or Liverpool for no reason other than having seen them on TV, that Southampton fans have a sense of pride about having Saints' Academy graduates in the team. There are goals in those forward players in that selection, so really hoping this is the day they come good.

As soon as I saw the claim of a "Super Computer" the whole thing immediately lost any credibility A bald attempt to oversell what is just a piece of software. The program would have produced entirely different results if any of the value judgements had been different, even marginally so and could have been run on a laptop because we all know the platform makes no difference. Quite frankly, the whole phrase "super computer" is just so twentieth century. Whoever wrote that article seems very out-of-date.

Interesting for me that this thread immediately brought out of the woodwork two posters that I have on ignore. Excellent ground bait. Les deserves a thanks now and then for his leadership especially of the recruitment department. He seems to have a knack for producing people who do well for us off the pitch as well as the ones getting the limelight on it. It's not only our players who have been poached because of the reputation they gain here.

As Saints' fans we know that the Premier League is far from a level playing field as a few clubs buy players for astronomical sums that are in a different universe to us. We all know about Chelsea and Man City, elevated to the top of the table by billionaire owners who pumped money into the clubs before the TTP rules were created, but even since, wealthy clubs continue to get around the spending limits. FFP was introduced by UEFA so doesn't only apply here but PSG spending £200m on one player (Netmar) shows that therules are a joke, just not a funny one. Saints have to operate in a completely different market for players. We have top purchase of around or below the £15m mark. Yet Chelsea can spend £60m on Morata from Real Madrid and £40m on Bakayoko from Monaco while Man U paid £75m for Lukaku amd Man City paid £52m for Mendy from Monaco. We know very well what sort of money Liverpool can spend on players because Southampton has received some of it but this close season other big deals included Spurs spending £42m and £23m on two players. FFP is supposed to mean that spending on transfers ands wages has to be contained within a club's revenue. Each club is supposed to balance the books. But wealthy club shave various ways of getting around that, often by padding out their income with inflated figures such as how much the club owner will pay the club for stadium naming rights or advertising. Not truly earned income but just a way of putting more money into the club. Even Arsene Wenger is complaining that FFP isn't fair at all but his solution is to scrap it altogether which would surely open the floodgates. In the meantime, clubs like Southampton have to find other ways to earn more income without selling your best players. There may be signs that our board has tried to do this by making the club commercially attractive in new markets, such as the USA and now in China. But surely there must be some other way to make this a fair competition because linking spending to revenue is not going to do it when Man U can sell football shirts in every airport in the world while Southampton probably struggle to sell any at Gatwick. I'm not offering a solution because it needs detailed research by the football authorities to come up with some workable and fair spending caps but I do think it's time for the fans of clubs like ours to try to make a noise about the unfair system we have to operate in. To that extend Wenger is doing us a favour.

Not a suggestion as what I, or any individual fan thinks is immaterial, but a guess at what Pellegrino might do for Saturday: Forster Cedric; Yoshida; Hoedt; Bertrand Romeu; Lemina Redmond; Davis; Tadic Gabbiadini Bench: McCarthy Targett Stephens Ward-Prowse Boufal Long Austin